Four Metro East towns have started supplying additional police officers to patrol around MetroLink stations.
Under an agreement reached with Bi-State Development, which operates the region’s light-rail system, and the St. Clair County Transit District, the Belleville, Fairview Heights, Shiloh and Swansea police departments began allowing off-duty officers to monitor platforms and parking lots last month.
The new patrols are a proactive approach to deter crime and improve the perception of safety on the public transportation system, Kevin Scott, Bi-State’s general manager of security, said Friday.
“We will never stop trying to add law enforcement presence on the system,” Scott said at a press conference in Fairview Heights announcing the effort. “We'll continue to be creative in expanding this very model — that’s starting here in St. Clair County — across the river and across the system.”
The officers, who can volunteer for the duty, will be an addition to a 15-person team from the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department that already patrols the light-rail network full time in the Metro East. On the Missouri side of the Mississippi River, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and St. Louis County Police Department have similar details.
Bi-State leaders like Scott and Taulby Roach, the president and CEO, see this agreement in the Metro East as a pilot program. Bi-State will try to replicate the program elsewhere.
The St. Clair County Transit District will pay overtime for the officers, as part of the agreements with the four departments.
The officers will be capped at working 30 additional hours per week. Because the work is voluntary, Scott said he doesn’t know how exactly many officers will patrol.
MetroLink has drawn scrutiny for violent crimes committed in and around the public transportation system. Area leaders hope the additional officers can address that issue.
“It's important that people feel safe and are safe when they ride our train,” said Mark Kern, chairman of the St. Clair County Board.
Friday’s announcement comes two weeks after St. Clair County officials and Bi-State leaders unveiled a new $15 million public safety center in East St. Louis.
Located at the Emerson Park MetroLink platform, the facility houses a new St. Clair County 911 dispatch center, office space for the county’s sheriff’s deputies and backup equipment for the light-rail system’s control center.
MetroLink has also nearly finished platform security work at four select locations in the Metro East — Emerson Park, Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center, Washington Park and Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville.
The updated platforms will require riders to purchase a ticket before getting on the trains. The idea is that the extra step will also improve safety.
While nearly all the construction on the four platforms is complete, supply chain problems for one particular piece of electrical equipment delayed the project’s completion. However, that equipment will be delivered in early August, and Scott estimates MetroLink will finish the platforms later next month.
Eventually, Bi-State plans to update all 39 stops in the St. Louis region with the secure platforms. Construction on the second set in Missouri is already underway, and they should be operational early next year.
